


At First

by Tayine



Series: Renegade Restrike [1]
Category: G.I. Joe: Renegades
Genre: Angst, Espionage, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-23
Updated: 2014-01-06
Packaged: 2017-12-30 05:58:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 15,974
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1014958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tayine/pseuds/Tayine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At first, and for a long time, it was a standard job.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

At first, and for a long time, it was a standard job. He followed his target, keeping himself hidden from her. He didn’t make contact because the man who had hired him – her father – had not told him to do so. He was just a sort-of, sometimes bodyguard.

Any other man with his skills would have thought the job beneath him. Any other man would have stayed a few days, tailing the girl, making sure she was safe, and then moved on. Not him. This girl was an orphan because he’d failed to do his job properly. He would have to live with that for the rest of his life, and so would she. So he stuck with her, watching patiently, protecting from afar. Doing his job.

Eventually, though, something changed. Maybe he got restless, or bored, or he let his guard down. Maybe it was a simple mistake, or maybe it was a subconscious need to have a little thrill in his life. The role of honorable ninja could only go on so long. Eventually, though, he was seen, and it was not so standard after that.

She was a young Army intelligence officer, working hard in some general’s office. She’d been called a stellar up-and-comer, real go-getter type. He’d eavesdropped on select, private conversations that could have been well beyond his security clearance, if he’d had one. Sometimes, he sank deep into daydreams of what it would be like to tell her all the good things that were said behind her back, watching her face light up and her pale cheeks redden. He wanted to see her smile and laugh, because for the years that he kept tabs on her, he didn’t often get to see that.

The night things changed was a warm night in June, warm at least for Washington D.C. as a heat-wave had choked the capital city for almost a week. She was walking back to her apartment where she lived alone. She was in civvies, a nice pantsuit that accentuated her figure, and sharp, short heels that clacked on the sidewalk. She was walking because her car had broken down that morning, and he had a feeling she thought herself too good for public transportation. He’d never once watched her board a bus or subway.

He hadn’t been with her much lately; in fact, it had been nearly two months since his last check-up. Things with his surrogate cousin had taken a turn, and she’d finally begun to get the hang of the grace that went with the art of ninjutsu. It had been almost a pleasure training her these last few weeks. Therefore, his responsibility with his charge had been put on the back-burner. He tried to assuage his guilt by telling himself that she was able to handle herself a lot more since her days in college - he’d watched her abuse punching bags and karate instructors alike long enough to know she at least had a handle on self-defense – but the deeper she went with this whole conspiracy with Cobra, the more he knew she was putting herself in the spotlight against the world’s most dangerous minds and egos.

He was jumping from fire escape to fire escape above her as she walked, keeping pace easily about a hundred feet behind her, his mind not in the game. He was wandering, daydreaming, not paying attention like he should have been. It was a shock, therefore, when he rounded a corner and realized he’d lost her.

This was not the first time she’d accidentally given him the slip, so for a moment he was not worried. Sometimes he just wasn’t good at his job, a shameful fact he hated to admit to himself. He’d just about made up his mind to go the short way to her apartment and make sure she’d made it home safe before calling it a night when a figure materialized next to him.

He reacted with almost split-second reflexes, dodging the punch that was aimed for his face, flipping the attacker over his shoulder and into a heap on the bottom of the rickety fire escape. He went for his own blow but stopped short when he recognized the person beneath him.

Shana O’Hara glared up at him, looking none the worse for wear even though she’d just survived what could have been a lethal attack if he’d put a little more heart into it.

“Who are you and why are you following me?” she asked with a deep, commanding voice that would make her a great general one day, ignoring the fact that she was looking up at him from the ground.

He offered a hand and was mildly surprised when she took it, then pulled her up into a standing position on the fire escape that creaked dangerously. He was in full costume, mask and everything, the red Arashikage symbol almost luminescent against the charcoal of the thermal spandex. He rubbed a closed fist in a circular motion against his breastbone, saying sorry in sign language even though he was pretty sure she didn’t understand.

“Who are you?” she asked in an even more dangerous voice, her eyebrows going low over fiery eyes. She was terrific at being angry.

He placed a hand against his throat and shook his head, then spread his hands out, palms up, trying to signify that he came in peace.

She watched the motions and then raised her head to look into his visor once more. “Why are you following me?”

He hesitated, knowing it wouldn’t be that hard to explain with broken signs that her father, the great inventor, the genius mind of some offshoot of Cobra Industries, had asked him to watch over her in his absence, after he himself had not saved his life. It wouldn’t be hard at all to tell her that, except for the fact that he knew he wouldn’t do it. There was no way he could come clean to this vibrant, sharp-minded young woman about the real reasons over her father’s death, something he knew she had obsessed over since her days as a young college student. He couldn’t tell her that he’d been checking in with her for years now for a few days or a week at a time, following her, making sure that she wasn’t getting into too much trouble. He had no way of explaining, as she’d found her way into the Army and had begun investigating the very company that had led to her father’s death, how devastated he’d been that she was walking into the same trap her father had and he’d been helpless to stop it.

So, as usual, he said nothing.

“You’re going to tell me,” she informed him, telegraphing the punch she was about to throw with the slightest movement in her shoulders. He dodged it just as easily as the first, twisting her arm with his to spin her around and away from him. Then he backed up, holding his hands up, shaking his head. There wasn’t enough room to maneuver as he would have liked in the small fire escape, and it creaked dangerously with each step they took. She made to attack again and he vaulted over the edge, swinging down three stories in a series of gymnastic moves to the pavement of the alley through which she’d taken a shortcut. He looked up to see her attempting the same, bull-headedly thinking she could. He would have shouted at her to stop, but of course, no sound would have come from his destroyed throat.

He watched as her fingers slipped off the rail of the lowermost fire escape as she struggled to recreate the same graceful swings he’d done, and he ran to catch her. She fell ten feet, not making a sound the whole time. He tried to cradle her body as it landed in his arms, knowing to soften the blow of an abrupt stop by swinging his torso down to counteract the force. He helped her straighten to his feet.

He’d won points by saving her a broken leg. She turned her face to him, tugging on the hem of her blazer. “Thank you.”

The ninja nodded. The soldier girl nodded.

“Who are you? If you don’t want me dead, what do you want?”

If he could have, he would have sighed. As it were, he’d long abandoned shows of emotion that couldn’t be hidden by his mask. Behind the visor, his face sometimes reacted as animatedly as an exaggerated cartoon, especially when overcome by strong emotions, but he only let it be this way because he knew no one would know. Outwardly, he was as stoic and silent as a statue. He thought a moment before lifting a hand, his thumb and first two fingers pressed together, scribbling a curvy line in the air.

Her gaze followed the sloppy sign language before turning back up to the fire escape they’d fallen from. “My purse…”

The ninja had it back down to her in a matter of seconds, handing it over gently. She rifled through it and pulled out a small notepad and a pen. He wrote quickly in a surprisingly neat hand before turning it to her.

“Snake Eyes,” she read, her eyebrow quirking. “What’s that?”

He pointed to himself.

“Your name?” She had the grace not to question it. “Okay, next question: why are you following me?”

This one he didn’t answer. He kept that guilt to himself. But it wasn’t as if he couldn’t tell her anything, so he did the next best thing and told as much of the truth as he could.

_You’re in danger._

“Why? From whom?”

_Cobra._

“I knew it,” she breathed, her green eyes blazing with fire. “I _knew_ they weren’t the all-American company they pretend to be. But how are you involved?”

This, again, led to a tricky slope. He couldn’t tell her why she was in danger from the company her father had worked for, the company he had sabotaged with his device that was going to be used for evil, as Patrick had put it when explaining to Snake Eyes exactly why he was running an axe through all of his hard drives. He couldn’t tell her how he had come to know her, to even care for her from afar, as she had challenged and surpassed all expectations, both his and those of her superiors in the Army.

So, as usual, he said nothing.

“Snake Eyes,” she murmured quietly, “there’s something fishy going on, and I’ve been feeling it for weeks. Someone’s been following me for a while, and I need to know whether it was you, or someone I should be afraid of.”

So she wasn’t afraid of him. That much was obvious, after all, since she was standing in a dark alley near midnight with him, having a conversation as casually as if they were in a local coffee shop. But the fact that she was revealing this to him was as eye-opening as it was worrying. He had not seen a trace of a tail on her since he’d first stopped by the night before, so if she did, that meant he was losing his touch, or she was.

He longed for a voice to explain things to her as he scribbled, his handwriting getting messier and messier. _How do you know? What have you seen? Has someone come to your apartment?_

“I just know,” she said, reading his notes as he wrote them. “Nothing, really, but I’ve been getting bad feelings lately. Someone ducking just out of sight, the same few black cars behind me in traffic, that sort of- How do you know I live in an apartment?”

Feeling perverted, he wrote, _I’ve been following you too. Sorry, had to. Cobra is after you and I needed to make sure you’re safe. I’m not a bad guy._

Shana snickered at the last phrase, the severity of the situation not tempered by the cartoonish description of someone who could potentially be a murderer. “I’m sure,” she said derisively, giving his outfit an exaggerated up-and-down. She sobered quickly, looking into his visor, right where his eyes were. That spooked him a bit. Most people he came face-to-face with seemed to focus in around his nostrils, if they looked at his face at all. She gave him a feeling like she could see straight through the mask. “Why are you involved? Why do you care?”

I can’t tell you, he moaned inside his head, sounding exactly as his voice had sounded. To this day, he had not forgotten the sound of his voice, the feeling of his vocal chords vibrating in his throat. He’d liked his voice. He’d been a pretty good singer.

_I just am. It’s my job to protect people. You are in trouble and I wanted_

The train of thought derailed, and he regretted his words instantly. They made him sound like a sap, like a loser, like a two-bit pining puppy with mommy issues and a butterfly net waiting for him. If only he could take them back by backtracking, clearing his throat to drown out his words, even laughing and saying, ‘Just kidding’. But there was no erasing the pen marks.

She read them as he wrote and was quiet for an infinite threebeat. “To help,” she finished for him eventually, looking up into his eyes again. He wanted to take off the visor and reward her with his true gaze, such was the persistence of her own, but there wasn’t time for that. He placed a hand on her shoulder and lowered his chin.

“So what do we do?” Shana asked.

That was exactly what he wanted to hear.


	2. Chapter 2

He didn’t put up a fight when she was the one to suggest that they regroup in her apartment, where there was less potential to be overheard or accosted by suspicious policemen. She had reacted to the knowledge that he had been tailing her surprisingly well, almost too well. He couldn’t help but feel like there was something she wasn’t telling him.

Shana half-jogged the remainder of the way back to her home, Snake Eyes back in position above and behind her, extra vigilant and alert. He wanted to try and spot the tail she had spoken of. If it were true, and Cobra was closer to her than they both thought, then there was a definite possibility that the operatives had seen them make contact and had watched their one-sided conversation. Anything was possible, so he prepared for the worst.

The soldier made it back to her place a few short minutes before he did. He watched the lights blink on through the thin curtains that hung over her windows on the top story of a short, straight, blocky building. He made the jump over the divide between her building and the one beside it and then lowered himself onto the fire escape that led to one of her windows. He tapped on the glass.

“It’s unlocked,” her voice said, muffled through the glass.

Snake Eyes slid it up gently and squeezed through the tight fit with the fluidness of a reptile, first his feet and legs finding purchase on the floor, then sliding his torso and head through, all in one motion.

Shana O’Hara was standing in firing position, aiming an automatic handgun at him. Her eyes were hard and her feet were planted solidly on the yellow linoleum. They were in her small, open kitchenette. Her back was to what was probably her front door. Snake Eyes went sad, then proud, then exasperated, all in the space of a second, as he analyzed the situation while putting his hands cautiously into the air.

“I don’t know who you are, but I don’t believe a word you’ve told me,” said the young woman. She spoke purposefully, and he knew she’d been rehearsing it, like lines. “I want the truth and I want you to tell me. No more of that stupid signing or writing crap.”

He would have been offended if he wasn’t impressed that she was keeping it together. She was brave, all right, and definitely a good soldier. If he could, he would have recommended a commendation of some sort. Only the foolish believe everything that is told to them the first time.

He shook his head, one hand going to his throat again in the same motions he’d done before, trying to will her to believe that if he was telling the truth about anything, it was absolutely this.

“Prove it,” she said quietly.

His face grimaced in a half-snarl, though she couldn’t see it. But it was the only way… he didn’t have to like it to do the job. This was his responsibility.

His fingers slipped down to the invisible seam where the thermal spandex hit the thicker, more armored material, the difference between the mask and headgear and the tougher fabric of the bodysuit. He tugged and it came loose, just enough so that he could create wrinkles in the spandex and pull it upwards.

She stared at the ugly, knotted scar for a long time. The gun in her hands drooped just a tiny bit.

So you see, he thought bitterly. The truth.

The scar was proof of his incompetence, his failure, and his loss. Everything that had happened that night with his adopted family had created ripples that spread into every facet of his life today. Maybe if he’d had his voice, her father would still be alive. Maybe if he’d had his voice he could have found a place in Japan with the Arashikage, helping Kim and her father lead the clan to an era of peace and goodwill. Maybe he could have told Patrick that his device was going to fall into the wrong hands. Maybe things would be fundamentally different for both of them if he didn’t have that scar.

“I’m sorry,” she said finally, and she meant it. He could see it in her eyes and in the way she lowered the gun, though she kept it cocked and both hands on the butt. “So you can’t talk.”

Snake Eyes shook his head.

“But you haven’t told me everything.”

Again, he shook his head.

“What-”

There was a knock at the door behind her, three sharp, short blows that made the knob rattle. They both looked at it and Shana moved first. He was there at her side in less than a blink, putting one hand on the back of hers as it reached for the handle and shaking his head.

“Why?” she whispered.

He put a finger to his lips and stepped behind the door, to her left where he’d be hidden when the door was open. He could not look through the peephole with his mask, but he had a feeling the person behind the door was not friendly. It was past midnight. Nothing good comes from opening your door to a stranger past midnight.

“Who is it?” asked Shana, feigning sleepiness in her voice even as her fingers tightened over the gun in her left hand.

“Lieutenant O’Hara, we need to speak with you.”

“And who’s ‘we’?” she asked gruffly. Good girl.

“Just open the door, please.”

Shana glanced at Snake Eyes and smirked, sharing with him a moment of derision that he found thrilling and confusing, as if already they were conspiratorial partners, in this thing together.

“Just a second.”

“Hurry up, please.”

“Well, at least they’re polite,” she whispered in the tiniest of voices to Snake Eyes, turning the knob and opening the door. He stepped back, keeping himself hidden. One hand drifted up to grip the handle of one of his katana, like a child and a security blanket.

“Yes?” she said, staring with a hard expression at the man behind the door. Snake couldn’t see him, only Shana’s profile and the gun she kept down at her thigh, hidden by the door and her body. She was leaning, like she was relaxed, against the edge of the door. Two fingers on her gun hand lifted from the trigger and tapped against the slide, twice. Two men.

“You need to come with us, Lieutenant.”

“And why’s that?” she asked, affronted but not defensive.

“There’s little time to explain. You’re in danger.”

Shit. He saw her mouth twitch. “Why? And from whom?” Her head twitched, like she was about to glance at him and then caught herself.

“We’re here to protect you. You have to come with us.”

Well, that was good. If Snake Eyes and these unknown operatives were going to tell her the same things, at least he was the one who was giving her more information. That would make it more likely that she would trust him over them, even if he was the one in full ninja gear and wearing two swords slung across his back. For a brief second there, he was afraid she would turn on him and go with them, but the lack of details in this stranger’s words was enough to ensure that she would stay with him and stay alive. He had to thank their bumbling inexperience when it came to arranging hits.

“You’re not telling me anything,” she growled.

“The less you know, the safer you are.”

Snake Eyes almost laughed aloud. If there was anything less damaging that a person could say to an intelligence officer, he had never heard it.

“I prefer all the facts,” she murmured dangerously. Her temper was wearing thin.

So, apparently, was that of another man, one who both Shana and Snake had not known was there. “This is taking too long,” grunted another voice. Shana jerked in surprise and looked right, to the new man, and jumped clear just in time to save herself from an energy blast that splintered the wood of the door. She fell backwards, recovered, and brought up her gun.

Snake Eyes bounded out from his hiding spot and used his fists to take down the first man, who had done nothing more than stand there, his thumb up his ass. The man crumbled to the ground and did not get up again. The second man managed to get off a shot that caught Snake’s hip, tearing a hole in his pants and burning his spandex. He careened sideways, opening up room for Shana to fire her gun three times in quick succession. The two remaining men in the doorway took cover behind the wall, where the brick and plaster of the old building’s walls protected them. Maybe they weren’t as inexperienced as he’d first thought. Then they started shooting blindly, weird energy pulses coming from their bulky weapons and singeing holes as big as honeydews in the drapes and wallpaper.

“Y’all right?” called the soldier over the din of the shots as she took her own cover behind her small kitchen table, which had been upended in the fray.

He was out of range of the shots, too deep in the kitchen to be in danger from the men as they stuck their weapons through the doorway and fired in Shana’s general direction. He nodded at her, hoping she would think to look for his reply, before then indicating the window.

“No!” she said angrily.

He threw a smoke pellet, releasing thick clouds of hot, acrid steam that filled the room with darkness and grabbed her arm on the way out, dragging her behind him. She resisted, but only for a second.

“We shouldn’t have retreated,” she said, following him up the fire escape to the roof just above them. Her gun was tucked into the front of her pantsuit bottoms, incongruous with the trim look of her outfit.

He didn’t have time or energy to argue with her over a notepad. Instead, he touched her arm again and pointed, beckoning her to follow. She did, stepping out of her shoes and running barefoot against the blacktop roof that still radiated heat, even three hours after sundown.

The operatives that had attacked them would regroup and follow, and he didn’t want to spur a chase that might end in civilians becoming involved. They would have to lose them, and fast. Even now, the fire escape was rattling with the sounds of their pursuit.

At the far end of the rooftop, they stopped side-by-side, both peering down over the edge and to the street far below. The next building was too far away for a jump.

Shana looked to Snake Eyes and he felt a rush of something, affection or determination or what, something that he couldn’t put into words, only feelings, and those feelings were dangerous. She was following him. Her life, as far as he was concerned, was in his hands. He would have to make the next move and make it fast because she was counting on him.

He raised both hands, the first two fingers crossed, and waved them in the air. ‘Ready?’ this meant, and though she didn’t know sign language, she was fluent in combat, and she nodded, bringing the gun out and cocking it.

“They’ll come separately,” she murmured, crouching down low behind an aluminum air duct that would provide lousy cover because of the thin metal. “I’ll get the first, you get the second.”

He nodded and began to stalk sideways, cursing the waxing three-quarters-moon above them. If it were darker, he would have blended better.

“Snake Eyes!” came a hiss.

He whirled back to face her.

“Do you have a knife?”

He hesitated only for a second before drawing one from its hidden pouch where it usually hung snugly against his hip and sent it skittering across the gravel-covered floor of the roof. She stopped it with her gun’s barrel and took it up with mouthed thanks, for at that exact moment the first of the would-be assassins appeared over the lip of the retaining wall.

“Olly-olly-oxen-free!” he cackled, his strange weapon swinging in wide arcs in front of him as he scanned. “Come on out, Lieutenant, and your weird ninja friend too, we won’t hurt you. Much.”

The second man, still hidden and out of sight, brayed with schoolyard-bully laughter, making Snake’s teeth itch.

“O’Hara, don’t make this hard on yourself. Come quietly and we only question you. Make us work for it, and, well, that’s on you.”

His glove tightened a fraction of a pound of pressure on his katana handle. He could still see her from where he was standing in the shadows of the roof door structure, and even at that distance, he could tell she was pissed.

“O’Hara! C’mon now, you’re disturbing the neighbors!”

Shana almost began to rise, just to stop the mocking, but seemed to catch herself. She was good. He wondered now, in an out-of-body moment that he sometimes experienced during fighting, how she had found the army, when and if she had discovered just how perfect a fit it was, and if she had aspirations beyond intelligence.

Far off, police sirens started their keening wail. This wasn’t uncommon in D.C., but given the lateness of the hour, he could only assume they were for them. He knew without a doubt that despite their best intentions, police officers would only bungle up their little operation if they made it in time to witness the firefight, so Snake made a quick decision and jumped out from his hiding spot, the blade in his hand flashing like liquid.

Several sounds went off at once, a shout, a bullet, and an energy pulse, and the force of the cacophony seemed to hit him like something solid. It wasn’t until he was flat on his back that he realized that it was more than sound waves that had felled him, and he struggled to rise.

Several more gunshots cracked across the night air, answered swiftly by those electric _pew-pew_ effects that were almost comical if it weren’t for the knowledge of how much damage the shots actually did. Snake Eyes did a quick mental tally, closing his eyes behind the visor. Wiggle toes, check. Flex calves and thighs, check. Abdomen, check. Ribs… ah.

He pushed himself to an elbow with sheer grit, lying on his side and exploring the injury with his right hand. The suit he wore had taken most of the heat energy, so that it was singed but the skin underneath was unharmed. There was nothing to be done, however, for the kinetic pulse that had hit him, and there was the source of the pain he was just now feeling like a disconnect. It was like medical students in their first years of school; they begin self-diagnosing themselves with all kinds of medical oddities and fantastic diseases as they learn about the symptoms. He was feeling the pain of it, but only because he was telling himself that he _should_ be feeling it. Broken ribs, check.

Shana came out of nowhere suddenly. First there were stars, and then there was the fireshine of her hair as it fell out of her standard ponytail. She crouched above him, handed him her gun without a word, and began to combat-drag him sideways. He went rigid in protest, his back arching, but he didn’t struggle.

“Nice one,” she panted, her hands clawed under his armpits. “I tell you to wait, and you jump in anyway. I’m beginning to think this is more personal for you than it is for me.”

He helped her drag his body by digging his heels into the gravel and pushing away. There were no more energy shots, and the night was still.

“I think I got them both, but they’re tough bastards, and I’m sure we’ll be followed by their backup.”

Snake Eyes couldn’t agree more.

“Where do we go?”

He placed an open palm against his chest.

“Your place?” She seemed to struggle a moment, then continued, “Like, an apartment?”

He wiggled out of her grip and made to stand, but she was fast and strong, even stronger than she looked with her biceps bulging under the fabric of her pantsuit jacket, and she fought to help him, support him. He leaned on her as he got to his feet, favoring his left side. They were back at the fire escape. Blood spatters told dead men’s tales, but he didn’t bother to look for the bodies.

“I have to call my SO,” she said, helping him as he climbed over the short wall and onto the metal bucket structure.

He nodded and winced.

“And you need a doctor.”

He shook his head.

Shana sighed dramatically. “You’re one of _those_.”


	3. Chapter 3

They had a brief but bloodless argument on the way down the scaffolding. Shana won. Snake Eyes stood outside the window to her wrecked apartment, silently fuming, until she reappeared there holding a backpack stuffed with medical supplies. It had taken her less than a minute to get in and out, but that was a minute they wouldn’t get back, and the cops were approaching. He could see their strobing red and blues coming up fast, almost down the main street and about to swerve onto her smaller residential road. If they got there before they made it to the ground, they’d almost certainly be trapped, but the stubborn young woman had shown off her greatest strength: her ability to argue. He was injured, they needed supplies, and she needed more magazines for her gun. She’d only had two when she’d grabbed it from her gun safe to confront him, so she was down to a single bullet in the chamber.

He noticed she had also changed from the cream pantsuit to a pair of stretchy black pants and a dark blue hoodie. Running shoes with light-reflective strips adorned her once-bare feet. Her hair was back into her signature ponytail. She gave him a hard grin and slipped on the backpack, tightening the shoulder straps so that it hung high and snug against her back. “Let’s go,” she said.

He led the way down, quick and lithe even though he was fighting the throbbing injury in his ribs. When it came to it, he could be pretty good at the hard stuff. The times that he doubted himself seemed small and very far away; at that moment, he was leading this young woman to safety. He was managing the guilt that seemed to sneak up on him at the most inopportune times. And, best of all, he had met her and she hadn’t shied away in anger, fear, or distrust. All in all, he was feeling very good about himself.

That warm glow lasted for all of thirty seconds. He stepped down from the steps that telescoped from the lowest structure (this one well-oiled and maintained, so that there was little sound to betray them) and had turned to beckon her down too when the blinding colors that announced a police presence erupted in the thin alley. He shielded his eyes and looked. Through the visor, he could see officers streaming from their cars in the street, yelling commands to each other and the looky-loos on the sidewalks, making a general ruckus.

 _Shit, damn, fuck_ , he thought.

“Shit, damn, fuck,” said Shana as she jumped to his side from above, her sneakers making a little scuffing sound on the pavement. “Where do we go?”

Snake Eyes took her hand. They jogged away from the street, keeping as quiet as possible. They could hear radio chatter and big men shouting big orders behind them. The cops would have to take time to scope out the lay of the land, getting updates from rubberneckers and the original reporters of the gunshots that had beckoned them in the first place. Snake and Shana had a few minutes to get their bearings and make an escape. Lucky for them, Snake Eyes had spent many a lonely night sitting in various perches high up, scoping out the slightest movement, memorizing the very patterns of brick and stone in the walls. He knew this neighborhood very well, knew the comings-and-goings of most of the people. If he were to take a guess, he would wager that the very first people to have been awoken by the firefight in her apartment had been the older couple directly below Shana, the couple with the cheating husband and the gambling-addicted wife. They had been the first to call. The sad little man two floors down, the one who slept with a gun under his pillow and the full bottle of sleeping pills in his hand, he had been the second, or maybe the third after the young mother with twin toddlers who screamed all day, if she had been awake at that hour, as she usually was, catching up on the episodes of the soap operas she didn’t have time to watch during the day.

The alleyway they were in now ended in a tall chain link fence, which cut off their alley from the one on the other side, between two food joints he would bet serious money Shana had never stepped a foot inside in her life. That street was busy and well-lit, exactly what they didn’t need – and Snake had to feel bad for a moment, that their getaway was hindered by his outfit in that regard – so they would have to do a little molding of a few laws to get to safety.

“Snake Eyes,” began Shana beside him, keeping pace with his long-legged jogging, “I haven’t thanked you yet.”

 _Thank me when you’re safe,_ he thought immediately, a bitter taste in his mouth, but he nodded all the same, squeezing her hand with his own to let her know he appreciated it.

“I mean, if it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t have known not to go with those guys. I might have been… shit would have gone down. So thank you. You saved my life.”

They got to the fence, sturdy and ten or twelve feet high in all its glory. They both began to climb at the same time. The links rattled noisily together, and they both made a similar facial expression, like a wince but without the pain.

“I trust you,” she continued, and Snake wished she would stop, even though he loved the sound of her voice and the points she was making and the fact that she was talking to him so easily, like they were lifelong friends. “But soon, I’m talking later tonight, I’m going to need a lot more info about all this.”

Snake crossed over the thick crossbeam and jumped back to the concrete, his boots taking most of the shock, his ribs taking the rest. He staggered, grabbed the fence for support, and recovered as Shana wiggled down a little further and then mimicked his move, falling and bending her knees and recovering quickly. “Are you all right?” she asked, her hands going for him, but he shook her off and nodded, heading down the thin divide between Shana’s building and the food joints that stood like little soldiers on the commercial street behind. Shana followed quietly, splashing through damp puddles of what he prayed was water.

“Do you think they’re Cobra?” asked the soldier girl after a few moments of them jogging single file down the damp, dark path, kicking old bottles and squeaking rats out of the way.

He shrugged, more to himself than as an answer to her. He didn’t care who they were. They were enemies, and she had spotted them first, had known about them long before he did, and was now safe with him out of sheer dumb luck, not him doing his job properly, as it should have been.

“I mean, it’s pretty sloppy, doing it out in the open like this,” she continued, and he had a sudden, heart-wrenching realization that her chattiness was probably a way for her to be working out her nerves, rationalizing the violence she’d had to commit and was still in danger of doing. The night was far from over. “If they wanted to stop me from investigating them, they could have chosen a better way of silencing me.”

Snake Eyes was staring hard in front of them, picking his path carefully through the thin alley. Every so often, they would step out from behind a restaurant or shop into the light of a new perpendicular alley, and he would halt their progress to peer carefully down at the sidewalk, making sure no one was looking down the nondescript backstreet so that they could dart to the safety of the next patch of darkness. Shana followed his movements and his signals like a pro, taking orders with the crispness only the US Army could train into their people.

“I have to call my SO,” she reminded him after a few minutes of this. They had made it close to a mile from her house, weren’t being followed, and were within thirty seconds to the safe haven of his crash pad. The ambient street noise had dulled as they got further and further away from the busy neighborhood that she lived in, and he even began to relax.

He nodded, turning his chin a bit so that she could see him acknowledging her from where she was walking.

“What do I tell him?”

They stepped out from the backstreet onto the dark, empty street of his own territory. It was tree-lined and quiet. She drew level with him and touched his forearm. “Where?”

He pointed and led. She followed.

During his stints in Washington, D.C., Snake Eyes lived and slept in the attic of an abandoned Victorian, which had been condemned in the 70’s due to faulty foundations. It had been scheduled to be demolished, but the bulldozer had never come, and the local government had seemed to forget completely about the old, decrepit structure. It stood deep on a weedy, trash-filled lot between two other nearly-identical Victorians, these two owned and loved by families, and was ignored by the rest of the neighborhood like family members who didn’t speak about that one exiled cousin. Snake Eyes had found it to be quite comfortable and well within his liking, and over the years had filled the top room with personal effects. There were several different entrances, all hidden from view from the street either by the waist-high weeds and grass or the rotting, broken-down sheets of wood that hung from the walls. Snake and Shana waded through the yard and climbed up onto the tall wraparound porch at the back of the house. He wanted to sign ‘careful’ to her but it wouldn’t have done anything, so he just kept a hand around hers in case she lost her footing or fell through treacherous floorboards, which had even gotten him once or twice.

“This is yours?” she whispered as they went inside through a door that hung partway off its hinges.

He shook his head.

“So you’re a squatter.”

He shook his head again, gruffly.

“Each answer I get, the more questions I have,” she grunted, sounding frustrated. He was fairly certain she wasn’t used to not knowing everything.

They climbed the stairs, stepping on the boards at the furthest part from the center as they could. Inside was cooler than the summer night on the streets, and the whole house smelled like mildew and damp earth. The few pieces of furniture that had survived decades’ worth of looting were all moth-eaten and decaying, and the wallpaper was peeling and chipping away. Upstairs was more of the same, the haunted-house aesthetic complete with floor-length cobwebs barring the entrances to most rooms. They ignored the second story completely and continued up the thin staircase to the attic. The door was ajar and he went in first.

The room had been mostly cleared of its contents in the decades since its last owner, though a few old rocking chairs and cardboard boxes full of dusty books had been left behind. These had been pushed away from the center of the room to line the walls, opening up space for his own little nest. He slept in a high-quality sleeping bag and had a camper’s lantern next to the single pillow, which he switched on. A cooler stuffed with nonperishable canned foods was open and standing beside a stack of books. Shana knelt to read their spines, then looked back up at Snake Eyes’ impassive, masked face, something inscrutable behind her eyes.

“So,” she said, straightening slowly. “This is where you live.”

He shook his head, sighing silently. His shoulders rose and fell with the breath. No, not really, but the truth was too complicated to explain properly.

“And you’ve been following me. How long?”

Long enough.

“How long?” she repeated dangerously.

He held up a full hand of fingers.

“Five weeks?”

Well, shit. He nodded, lying brazenly, seeing now what she’d looked like as a college freshman in her first school sweatshirt, as a college senior in her cap and gown, as an Army private in her olive drab t-shirt, as a special agent within US Counterintelligence in her cream-colored civilian-wear.

“And how do you know it’s Cobra after me? How does Cobra _know_ to come after me?”

That one she could probably answer herself. She knew how much muck she was stirring up, making trouble within her department to investigate a private corporation that, on the outside, had seemed to do nothing wrong. She was vocal and she was adamant, and if she truly believed in Cobra’s dirty dealings and corruption, she shouldn’t have been surprised that they would send someone to deal with her. Snake Eyes saw in her face that she was answering her own questions, coming up with scenarios in her head.

“Okay,” she breathed slowly. “I have to call my SO now.”

She unzipped her backpack and rummaged through it while it hung off one shoulder, then motioned to Snake. “Sit down and we can fix you up while I talk and get more info.”

He gingerly settled cross-legged near the head of his sleeping bag, still favoring his ribs. Perhaps they weren’t broken after all, but they were definitely bruised, and he didn’t want to think what could have happened if he’d taken that shot to the gut or skull. Shana knelt beside him, also taking up space on the cushiony softness of the sleeping bag, and pulled out a mess of medical supplies that looked like they’d come straight from a doctor’s office. He picked up one roll of gauze and saw that it was in its own packaging, sterile and ready to use. His face moved slightly to glance at her curiously, and she saw it.

“’Be prepared’ isn’t just for Boy Scouts,” she smirked. “Pull up your… shirt.”

‘Shirt’ was the closest word for it, but he smiled behind the mask at the simplistic name for such a complex outfit. He obeyed, bringing the tight, thick spandex up, rolling it and tugging at the parts with the reinforced plates, revealing the angry red area of the injury on his lower ribs. It was dotted with broken capillaries and a few tiny pinpricks of blood and would surely be a blotch of angry purple bruising by this time tomorrow.

Shana blotted a clear liquid from a bottle onto a patch of gauze and patted it against his skin with her right hand. Her left was still digging within the backpack, making sounds of disarray as she upended and scavenged through what sounded like many treasures within. The liquid stung momentarily, but he held in a flinch, sitting stoically.

Finally, with a tiny, triumphant cry, she pulled out her cell phone and dialed it with one hand, the touch screen beeping to life, while applying a new liquid to a new gauze strip.

“This one will make your skin go numb for a few hours,” she said to him, bringing the phone to her ear while she gently brushed the gauze against his side. “It won’t help your ribs, which I’m sure are hurting, but at least the- dammit!”

She brought the phone away from her ear and stared at it like it had just said something rude. She dialed again, pressing the touch screen numbers firmly with her thumb. Snake watched this, a nervous feeling creeping into his stomach. At least the numbing solution was working. The constant, distracting sting of the injury was fading like a memory.

“God dammit!” she cried again. “It won’t connect, like I have no signal.” She held the phone out at arm’s reach to the sky, then brought it back to her nose, glaring at the screen. He could see the reflection of the dial pad shining in her eyes as she worked over it.

“Fuck!” she shouted finally, throwing the phone down to the sleeping bag. “Piece of crap!”

He shook his head, holding out a hand with a little wave. She watched this, the anger seeping out of her passionate green eyes and understanding taking its place. Then cold, hard fury blazed up like diamonds in her gaze. “ _Cobra_ ,” she hissed. “Of course. They must have my phone number, somehow, maybe there’s a monopoly on my service provider or something. Dammit.”

They sat in silence for a moment, considering their limited options.

She was opening her mouth to continue her rant, or to question him some more, when a creak downstairs brought them both to their feet in a flash. They weren’t helpless victims in a horror movie; they both knew the implications of the sound. Shana bent to gather her supplies and stuff them into her backpack. Snake Eyes rolled down his bodysuit and did a quick mental checklist, running through every weapon he had on his body. He dragged his sleeping bag and cooler to the edge of the room and stuffed them behind some old furniture. They weren’t sentimental or anything, but the less Cobra knew, the better, and he didn’t want them gathering any information on him if he could help it. Shana saw what he was doing and helped him, placing the books on the top of an old bureau, making it look like they’d only been there for a few minutes, erasing all traces of his continued existence. She was holding the defunct cell phone, and was making a motion to break it with both hands when he stopped her.

“Why?” she mouthed.

He shook his head and pocketed the phone. It was obvious that the phone was how the Cobra operatives had found them, but he had a plan.

They climbed down the stairs, creeping quietly on the balls of their feet. The sounds were louder now, scuffing footsteps and muttered curses as the men bumped into things in their clumsy haste. Shana was squeezing her hands into fists; Snake wanted to make eye contact with her, to command her to be still and silent, but he couldn’t do anything with the mask.

He touched her hand and jerked his head sideways, indicating the second-floor hallway they had ignored before. They crept down it, leaving the sounds of the men trashing the first story behind them. They came to a halt in one far bedroom, which was empty except for an old desk leaning on three legs. Snake Eyes tried to pry up the old window, struggling with the rusted latch, but it wouldn’t give. Shana stood back-to-back with him, her gun pointed straight at the closed door, ready to squeeze off life-saving rounds if anything came through.

He cursed, his lips forming the words, and glanced behind him. Shana nodded, her face set into a grim, determined soldier’s gaze. He drew one of his katana from its sheath and stabbed the glass.

It broke in a tinkling shower at their feet. Below them, the sounds of shouts and pounding feet sounded the alarm. Shana went through first at Snake’s beckoning, keeping her gun in her hand and steadying herself as best she could with the limited handholds. Snake held her sides. When she was balanced on the overhanging roof, she scooted sideways to make room for him. Snake went through the window much as he had the similar one earlier in the night, so recently ago and yet it felt like decades. He was just clearing his head and shoulders when men burst into the room behind them. Another of those damned energy pulses whined through the night, singeing the wood of the frame. Snake slipped and slid a bit down the slanted roof, but Shana was there, grabbing his forearm to stop him.

“Stop!” yelled gruff voices from within, but the two of them were already running. The overhanging, wood-tile roof wound around the entire first floor of the house like a crown. It was slippery and treacherous, and they had to go carefully, at half-speed to make sure each step would hold. Snake led the way in an unsteady diagonal, their ultimate goal to find a good place to descend.

“O’HARA!” bellowed one of the men. He sounded close, too close. Snake glanced behind just as they turned the corner and saw someone coming out of the same window. His insides gurgled a little and he tried to remember when the last time he’d eaten was.

“We have to get down,” Shana panted in a furious rush, whispering beside him as they jogged. He nodded, ever aware of the woman for whom he was eternally responsible.

The roof would just take them in a circle, right back to where they’d begun. Other men were undoubtedly circling the second floor, keeping them in sight through the other windows of the rooms. Snake Eyes went to the very edge of the roof and looked right and left, looking for a support beam down which they could rappel, using it as a sort of fireman’s pole. Shana stood there at her place, aiming the gun, her back nearly touching his. Her head turned a bit and he could hear her voice in his ear: “Now would be good.”

The man pursuing them turned the corner and fired off a blast that just missed them. Snake could feel the heat of it as it passed by their chests. Shana flinched beside him and backed into him.

He dropped and took her with him, his arm around her middle. She had no time to react. He slid down the column, raking splinters into his suit where it chafed against the ancient wood, and braced for the impact of the porch and, just a foot or two below that, the hard, hot ground. Snake landed and rolled. Shana landed.

They were both up in a flash and wrestling through the weeds and grass. The men behind them were shouting, to them and to each other, and Snake and Shana would not have much of a lead in this second chase.


	4. Chapter 4

They came out onto the street and took off down the dark sidewalk. The buildings evolved from Victorians to red brick colonials. The heavy tree cover that was popular on the suburban streets of Washington, D.C. made their job a little easier, as it blocked the moonlight and artificial fluorescence of street lights. He thanked his stars that she had decided to change to dark colors and running shoes; beside him, Shana was keeping pace like an experienced runner.

They took a few smaller, one-way roads, still on the public streets, but it was late and there were no cars. Snake quickly found himself outside of his territory and had to lead the chase out of instinct alone; he had never come this deep into the neighborhood before. Shana, beside him, was silent, saving her breath for the run.

He had time to marvel at the quaint architecture and expensive cars parked on the street and in the driveways. This was old American history, this town. Though he’d spent most of his adolescence and teenage years in Japan, he still had a fondness for the United States and its way of doing things, as brutish and stubborn as it was. He couldn’t help but feel patriotic, especially with this real-life American hero he was running beside, and he loathed Cobra for all that it had done and was planning on doing to the country and the world.

“W-We still have the phone,” Shana reminded him suddenly, in a shaky breath. He worried she was getting tired and slowed a few paces, but she bumped into him and pushed his back with one hand, urging him forward. He resumed the speed and pulled the phone out of his pocket.

He planned on strapping it to something moving, a car perhaps, to throw off the signal that the operatives were following. Up ahead, they were coming to a busier street; cars passed nearly three or four a minute, giving him lots of choices. He would have to pick a taxi that was idling on the sidewalk, put the phone in place, and hope that the driver would get a fare fast enough that the men wouldn’t catch up before the car had a chance to take to the road.

Shana was breathing raggedly now, and her heartbeat was elevated higher than he would have thought for someone in such good shape. Maybe the night was catching up to her. Snake had to make this quick.

He indicated that she nestle into the thick brush that lined one side of the street that was absent a sidewalk, ducking behind the black sedan parked there. He would steal out to the road, do his thing, and come back for her. She saw the phone in his gloved hand and grabbed for his arm, stopping him with one hand.

“No!” she whispered fiercely. “You can’t!”

He shook his head and was lifting his free hand to his head to sign ‘Why?’ when she interrupted him, her features drawn into a scowl.

“That’s involving civilians, you can’t do that. Cobra might snap and do something stupid out of anger. No.”

Snake Eyes drew his eyebrows down, hidden by the mask, and swallowed an angry retort. She didn’t want to involve people, but not doing so might risk her life.

“I’d rather us than them,” she growled, using more voice instead of just whispering, putting more heart into it. “Let them chase us, not innocent people who might not be able to defend themselves.”

He stared at her, startled. She’d practically read his mind. Who was this woman?

“Come on,” she said. “Snake Eyes.”

The ninja drew a breath and let it go. Fine. He dropped the phone in the sewer gate below their feet.

“Thank you,” she said, meeting his gaze. Her face was pale, even paler than normal. Her lips were devoid of color and sweatshine was marking her forehead. She looked worse than just tired from the run- she looked like she was going to pass out.

He looked behind them to the street and saw no indications that the agents behind were catching up. The signal from the cell phone would either move with the current in the storm drain, or it would go out from water damage. Either way, he felt safe enough to take a break. He indicated the same parked sedan beside the little alcove of brush and they jogged there together in three long steps. The earth went neck-high in an incline beneath the layer of ivy leaves and tangled bushes and thick trees, but it would serve as a good hiding spot in case the men did happen to come this way. They’d be able to see which direction the men chasing them would choose, and after they were gone, Snake and Shana would go the other way.

Shana had trouble climbing the small incline, however. She was only using one hand to hold on to the ivy as an anchor and her sneakers were slipping on the sun-dried dirt. Snake had to push her up by her rear end, and she fell awkwardly into the leaves once she made it to a level patch. He came up after her and pulled the leaf cover closed, tugging branches and the ivy to erase the mark they’d made by coming in. He settled next to her and stilled.

The alcove smelled of rich earth and moss. It was much darker now that they were in such thick brambles, and he could barely see her sitting next to him, though the street beyond the curtain was as clear as it could be. If they were very quiet, they wouldn’t be discovered.

There was still the troubling development of Shana’s condition, however. He could hear her breathing pattern had not improved; though no longer rapid, the pace of her breaths was irregular and shallow. It sounded like-

His hands went to her neck and she flinched. “What are you-?” she whispered, but two of his fingers pressed to her lips to hush her. His hands went around her neck and then to her shoulders, touching lightly, feeling more for a reaction than anything. He went down her arms to her elbows, then around to her ribs, carefully avoiding her breasts, down her stomach and waist, then up her back to her neck again.

“What are you _doing_?” she demanded fiercely, though she hadn’t moved away, as if she knew there was a purpose to the sudden and inappropriate touching.

He took his hands and moved them back to her arms, both hands on one arm, going from the shoulder down to the wrist. He did this on her left arm first and then on her right, the one farther from him.

“Aaah!” she cried out suddenly, making him jump even though he was expecting it.

Fuck. He’d slid his fingers down to her right wrist, feeling for the injury he was sure she had, and now he’d found it. Beneath the heavy, soft fabric of the sweatshirt sleeve, there was something causing her much pain, enough that she was pulling her arm away from his grip. He tightened his fingers a fraction of a pound and did not let go, needing to see exactly what he was dealing with. He tried rolling the cuff up but she tugged away from him, vocalizing her discomfort.

“It’s nothing,” she grunted. She was still fighting him. “I sprained my wrist in the fall.”

Snake Eyes was stronger. He restrained her with one hand around her upper forearm and pressed his first two fingers deep into the crook of her elbow in a fast, hard motion. She gasped and tried to flex her fingers, but the nerves were shocked and numb, and the movement was slow and sloppy.

“Hey!” she cried.

He went back to the sleeve cuff and continued rolling it. Now that her arm was numb, he’d have a few minutes to poke and prod and see what was wrong without her feeling it too much. In the darkness, with his gloves, he was not getting all the information he wanted, but it would be enough just to see-

He stopped and whimpered silently, the air passing through his damaged throat like a secret. The entire right side of her forearm was burned. The fabric of the sleeve was charred clear away, leaving a hole the size of a tennis ball, the tattered edges cauterized. The burn on her skin was ugly and red, already growing into a liquid-filled blister. She’d kept it hidden from him. Now that he thought about it, since jumping from the roof, she’d been holding herself funny, the arm high and tight against her chest, shifted so that the burned area was against her body. He hadn’t been able to see it, even as he was handling her arm, until he’d been rolling the sleeve and the fabric just dissolved into nothing.

 _Shana_. He choked on her name in his mind.

“I’m sorry,” she said softly.

He took her shoulders and shook his head fiercely. There was no reason for her to be sorry. This was his fault. She’d been in the direct path of the blaster when they were on the roof and he was taking his sweet time getting down. If he’d been quicker, she wouldn’t be in pain. Oh, the pain. No wonder she’d been developing shock-like symptoms. Burns were heinously painful, especially as the severity got higher and higher, and this one was second-degree at least. There’d be no numbing cream relief for this injury. He couldn’t risk infection by spreading the ointment over the tender blister and popping it.

Shana shrugged off her backpack without being told, seeming to sense the next step was him dressing the injury as well as he could. She knew basic first aid, knew what was coming and what wasn’t. He could see the grim resolve in her face as she began pulling out gauze. At least she’d made it past the frightening bout of shock. Color was coming back into her cheeks and lips.

The burn spread along the far edge of her forearm, an elongated circle that stretched from the curve of the arm. Snake could remember the heat of it in the air, and swallowed some bile as he realized Shana had felt that on her own skin without so much as screaming. He rubbed some antiseptic lotion from a thick tube on the blister with his gloved fingertips, taking care not to pop it, then began wrapping gauze around. Shana watched this with passive eyes, her fingers wiggling.

“It’s beginning to hurt again,” she murmured, then closed her lips and looked at him apologetically before averting her gaze. She seemed to be reluctant to whine or even tell him what she was feeling. This frustrated him. He’d rather be annoyed with her constant chatter than be terrified by her prolonged silence.

When he was done with the dressing, pinning it closed with a bandage pin, he put his hand on top of it and held it there lightly, searching her face for something. She finally brought her gaze up and stared at the mask for a long time.

“Thank you,” she said.

He nodded.

He anguished.

She licked her lips and looked past him, at the street. Muscles tightened around her mouth and eyes.

Snake Eyes mimicked her, moving fluidly and silently to turn his body so that he could see. Beyond the curtain of vines and leaves, four men in dark suits were running out onto the street they’d just vacated, each holding a large energy gun like the ones he’d seen in her apartment. He was getting his first good look at them now; they were bulky and powerful, fitting around the holder’s arm almost like a gauntlet. He had seen the damage they could do, and he did not care to test them again.

The men spoke to each other in low voices. One held up a small device, probably a smart phone, and held it in the air in front of him like he was trying to get a signal. He seemed lost. The others spread out from him, like they were searching for footprints or bread crumbs to lead them, and the man with the device shook his head and shrugged. Another man snarled something, the low rumble of his voice indiscernible except for the tone, which was very obviously not happy.

Shana leaned forward a bit, her green eyes narrowed, her lips lifted in a snarl. She was holding her injured arm awkwardly still, like it was stiff, and Snake Eyes worried that if at any point they would have to fight hand-to-hand, she would sacrifice the integrity of the bandage and the healing process by using both hands. Even now her fingers were curling into fists. He touched her knee, but she didn’t respond to the contact. _Easy there tiger,_ he thought in someone else’s voice, a quote from something from his distant past.

The men were arguing now, gesticulating with the arms that weren’t burdened by the weapons. None of them seemed to be the leader, so there was chaos and confusion. Finally one of them stormed off, down to the busy road, and the others followed, still snapping at one another like angry wolves. They were making enough of a racket that Snake could still hear them as they got to the end of the quiet residential street and turned onto the busier commercial one, where he’d been planning on using Shana’s phone as a signal decoy. He strained to see through the brush if they were really gone. It seemed like the men were now on a wild goose chase, all the better for the two of them. Now on to the next plan.

Sounds of motion made him turn again. Shana was rummaging through her bloated backpack with her good arm. She brought up the same small notebook he’d been using to communicate with her only two hours before. His mind reeled at that, the fact that it had only been a few short hours since she’d gotten the jump on him in the middle of the fire escape.

“We need to come up with a new plan,” she whispered. Her voice was stronger now, and the familiar fire in her eyes had come back. She held out the notebook and pen with her left hand. “I can’t call my superior officer, but he must know something’s happened, because my apartment was under siege. The police would contact my office, the phone number is in the kitchen and I’m officially missing.”

 _We could try to make it to your office on base_ , he wrote.

She read this and made a noncommittal half-shake of her head. “Yeah, but it’s ten miles from here. It would take all night to walk. I don’t have money on me.”

Nor did he. What spare cash he kept, for the few amenities he couldn’t scrounge on his own, was back in the Victorian house.

“What we should do,” she said, speaking with the command voice of an officer in the military, “Is go back to my apartment. I’m assuming that you can get in and out without attracting attention to yourself. You can find my purse and then we can take a taxi to post.”

He preened a bit at her correct appraisal of his skills but worried that going back to the scene of the crime would just entangle them in the police, something he was eager to avoid. He said as much on the notepad, scribbling, _we don’t want to go to police, right?_

“Right,” she sighed. “This is Army business. Local law enforcement would try to bully jurisdiction issues.”

It was settled, then. He slid down the sloped earth of the alcove and slipped the notepad into the deep pockets of his pants, then held a hand up for her. She took it, giving him a small, brief smile, and slid down too, getting dirt on her runner’s pants. She brushed it away idly while zipping up her backpack. She was still nursing the arm; it seemed like even turning her wrist hurt her.

Without really thinking about it, almost like a reflex, he signed ‘sorry’ to her. The language was half of his communicating skills and it was as inherent to him as speaking had been before, used without thought.

“What’s that?” she asked. They were standing on the street again, but no cars had passed by for a while.

He took out the notepad. _It means sorry. I’m sorry you got hurt._

“In sign language?”

Snake Eyes nodded, putting the pad away again. He didn’t want to dawdle with a conversation now that they were back in the open.

“Do you speak it fluently?” She sounded fascinated.

He gave a wry grin that she couldn’t see; the mistake of saying ‘speaking’ sign language was one that never got old, but he shook his head shortly and made to start walking, wanting her to follow. No, he didn’t sign fluently. He knew several of his personal most-commonly-used words and phrases, and could sign the basics with someone who knew the language well, but no, he wasn’t fluent.

Shana fell into place beside him, walking steadily. She was quiet again, a hunter’s mask of fierce determination settling down across her face. She had an uncanny ability to snap into soldier mode within seconds. It reminded him of himself.

The walk back to her apartment was short and uneventful. They jogged for most of it, wanting to speed up the process as much as possible. The sooner they were on her base, surrounded with armed soldiers who would shoot first and ask questions later when it came to their colleague, the sooner they would be completely safe. And now that they weren’t being followed, they could take a direct route, on wide avenues and long, straight streets back.

When they got to the cross-street that touched hers, Shana fell forward ahead of him and he went back, an unspoken arrangement that surprised both and neither of them. It was already crystal-clear to both of them that they worked well together; it had been only a matter of time before their professionalism and similar thought patterns manifested in an almost psychic connection. Shana took the main road, scanning the crowd of people loitering on the sidewalk opposite from her building, staying out of sight of the ones she recognized, the ones who might shout and identify her to the police and to anyone else more sinister who might be watching.

Snake kept one eye on her for only a moment before melting into the shadows of the apartment building and the short shops that stood beside it. He was approaching the building from the opposite side that they had earlier. He would have to go around the entire structure to get back to the fire escape they had scaled before. He wondered if her window was still open, ignored by investigating police, and tried to remember if she had closed it behind them when they’d left with the backpack of supplies.

Police cars were still throwing the entire street into strange relief. Snake could practically feel the red and blue light reflecting off his charcoal suit, and he itched to find some cover. He pulled bear claw climbing gloves from their pouch on his thigh and began to scale the ancient brick wall of Shana’s building, deep on the side where no one was watching. His ribs began to ache again, a ghost pain, and he reminded himself that it was nothing compared to Shana’s burn. Dammit, he would power through and after this was all over, he would do his very best to never let her get hurt again.

When he got to the roof, he slunk over to peer down at the main street, the busy one with the crowds and the police herding them like cattle. Shana was standing across on the far sidewalk, leaning against the glass window of a bakery, nonchalantly tapping her foot with her arms crossed over her chest. She was directly beside a cop cruiser with its windows rolled down, listening to the radio chatter that was coming from the console inside. Her chin raised a fraction of an inch and she made an ‘OK’ sign with her left hand without breaking her pose.

He nodded once then slunk back across the roof to the fire escape. So far, so good. No one had sighted him.

The bodies of the assailants earlier were still there, lying in dramatic spread-eagles. Blood spatters covered their clothes and bodies. Shana had good aim; he could see the bullet wounds in a tight formation through their chests. Death had been relatively quick as her bullets tore through their arteries and aortas. Snake stepped over the dead men without giving them another thought.

This was where it got harder. Police officers and detectives obviously had not discovered the bodies on the roof just yet, but they would definitely be in her apartment by now. He would have to recon their movements and determine whether it was worth it to go in through the kitchen, knocking each and every person out, or if he could go in through the bedroom window and wait for the perfect moment to slip into the hall, where she had told him her purse was hanging on a hook. Her apartment was small, and those were the only two windows he could use, and both plans had their pros and cons. Waiting would take too long, but not waiting meant a much higher chance of drawing attention to himself.

He lowered himself onto the top basket of the fire escape carefully, down almost on all fours, straining to see and hear everything he could. He couldn’t see Shana from her lookout position from where he was, and he felt naked, like a lifeline had been cut. It also felt strange, being back at the scene of the crime, so to speak, when only hours before he’d been eager to get as much distance as he could between himself, Shana, and this place.

The window to her kitchen was blessedly open, the curtains rippling with the sporadic warm June breeze. Figures moved across it in shadows every now and then, but he couldn’t hear much more than general murmurs of speech as crime scene technicians documented the scene.

Taking a breath, Snake Eyes went down to the next level of the structure and decided to go in through her bedroom window. He was good at sneaking and good at disabling people, but he preferred to sneak when it came to civilians just doing their jobs.

Her bedroom window was locked, however, he discovered as he tested it as gently as he could, not wanting to make a noise and alert the people inside. Frustrated, Snake pounded a fist against his thigh. It seemed like his mind had been made up for him. He couldn’t exactly break this window without attracting attention. He went back to the kitchen window and listened for a moment, watched the shadows, and then lifted one corner of the curtain with his finger, peering through the tiny hole he created.

Inside her kitchen were three techs in white coveralls and booties, stepping around the disaster zone and photographing everything. A uniformed officer stood guard in the broken front door, his back to the kitchen. Snake closed his eyes, prepared himself for a fraction of a second, and leaned forward to dive through headfirst.

“Stop! Ma’am!”

“You can’t go in there!”

“Like hell, this is my apartment!”

Shana burst through the doorway, pushing aside the cop in the doorway, pursued by two uniformed officers and one angry-looking suit. Snake Eyes would have been inches from killing her if he wasn’t fascinated with her ability to bully her way up three flights of stairs. He reeled back onto his heels, crouching beside the window, and peeked through the tiny opening he was making with his hand to see her standing in her kitchen arguing with the police.

“Ma’am, you can’t-”

“Listen, this is my apartment, and I was attacked here tonight, so you can’t just tell me to leave.”

“Ma’am-”

“Lieutenant O’Hara.”

“Lieutenant, I understand there’s been an altercation on the premises, which is exactly why we need you to come with us-”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

She took a few steps backwards, gesturing wildly, getting the attention of all of them, even the crime scene techs, who straightened up from their work and were watching with their backs to the window. All their backs were to the window.

 _Good soldier_ , he thought. He went through and half-crawled across the linoleum floor, past the tiny table and chairs that took up the far side of the kitchen, and into the hallway beyond. Right there was her purse, hanging from one of three hooks, just like she’d said. He had to grin for a second at the fact that she had come home in a rush after meeting him, gone to get her gun from its safe in her bedroom, made it back to the kitchen to await his arrival with it cocked, and had still found the time to put away her purse. He slipped his hand in, felt the leather square of her wallet around the other odds and ends that seem to exist in all purses, and retrieved it, tucking it into one of his deep pockets. And back out to the fire escape, no problem. Shana was still arguing, doing her best to keep the fight going, making circular points and frustrating the officers.

“I know it’s a crime scene, but you can’t tell me to just leave! May I remind you that I was attacked here!”

“Yes, and we have a few questions for you, we need you to file a police report-”

“I’m not going anywhere with you, I was attacked!”

He almost chuckled at the indignation in her voice as he made his way out, straightening to stand on the fire escape. He had wanted to meet her back where she’d been standing beside the police car, but he wasn’t sure the cops would just let her go now that she had their attention.

“Alright, fine, I’ll go down with you.”

The suddenness of her about-face seemed to take the cops by surprise. Snake could almost hear their astonishment through the curtains.

“Are… are you sure?”

“Yes, of course, let’s go.”

The sounds of their footsteps receded into the hallway of the apartment floor. Snake jumped and vaulted down the three floors and landed with ease in the middle of the alleyway. He ran to the street but didn’t come out into it, not wanting people to see him. He would wait for her to come out of the building and then take it from there.

She exited the front lobby with two uniformed officers in tow, and several things happened at once. Snake leapt from his place in the alley, bouncing across the tops of police cars, just as gunshots and those goddamned laser beams erupted, just as several panicked screams pierced the air, just as the people on the far sidewalk began to scatter, pushing each other away, just as police began to shout and draw their weapons.

He had seen the man and recognized him a millisecond too late- he’d already been drawing his gun and firing when Snake made his move, hopping like a toad on the car hoods, his swords both drawn and brandished. The man fired his stupid, goddamn ugly, piece of crap weapon just as Snake descended upon him and slashed, the metal of his katana stronger than that of the weapon. When the laser beam gun -piece of shit- was in pieces, Snake replaced his katana and punched and kicked. The man countered his blows with experienced moves, but suddenly other weapons were being fired around them, and the surging of the terrified crowd was too much, and Snake was knocked to his knees.

It was chaos on the street. The police didn’t know who to fire at or who was firing at them, and so were shouting and gesticulating and herding the people with their guns pointed in the air, and some of them were falling from the weapons’ beams anyway.

Snake got the man to the ground with a sweep of his legs and knocked him out cold, straddling him. He looked to the front door of the building, remembering Shana and how she’d been exposed. Through the shifting pictures of legs running, he could see bodies on the front stoop. There was a swirl of fireshine spread like copper across the stone steps and his whole body went cold before he was up and running, pushing through the bodies that ran in all directions, needing to get to the one person that mattered.


	5. Chapter 5

People were running in all directions, screaming and covering their heads with their arms. The siege on the street was pandemonium. Snake Eyes pushed and shoved through the people, rude and rough and unapologetic about it as he ran the thirty feet to the front stoop of her building.

Shana was lying on the steps awkwardly, upside down and legs splayed like a rag doll, beside two of the officers who had flanked her as they came out through the door. One officer was missing most of his left cheek and nose from the old-fashioned bullet wound that cratered his face. The other was struggling with a gushing wound on his thigh, writhing and moaning. Snake ignored both of them. He took hold of her body and pulled it into a prone position on the sidewalk, making her entire body level in case there was need to stop bleeding.

The wound in her chest was tiny, practically a pinprick of torn fabric dead center between her breasts. He didn’t know why the assailants from Cobra had switched to regular guns, but he recognized the wounds on the other two as such. Shana’s was the same, though there was no blood on the front of her navy blue sweatshirt. Her heart had stopped instantly. Snake Eyes raised two shaking hands from her arms to her face and cupped her cheeks, feeling the softness through the gloves.

 _I’m so sorry, Shana_ , he said, his mouth forming the words, the air from his lungs passing his lips, soundless and cold. His limbs felt shaky and weak, like he was going to pass out. Here he was, once again kneeling over the body of someone he cared for, someone he’d known and respected and vowed to protect, once again having failed to save them. The trauma of the Hardmaster’s death was washing over him, making him blind with regret and sorrow.

Then she coughed and spluttered and he flew out of his skin, his left hand even going for the knife out of well-practiced instinct as he scuttled backwards like a crab. She opened her eyes and winced and doubled over, her uninjured arm grabbing at a fistful of sweatshirt. “Fuck,” she wheezed, then saw Snake Eyes and reached for him.

He reached too, and when their hands connected he swept her into a tight embrace, though he wasn’t quite sure who was supporting who. Now with his chest pressed against hers and her injured arm, he could feel her rapid and strong heartbeat, and he cursed himself an idiot and a fool for not checking right away.

When they broke apart her left hand stayed on his neck. “Bulletproof vest,” she said in a hoarse voice. She was smiling with half her mouth in a way that made her look very young. “I stole it out of a cruiser trunk right before I went upstairs.”

Smart, wonderful little soldier. He breathed and sighed and nodded. His arms were still around her.

People were also still being hit by gunshots and energy blasts around them. The attackers were being herded down the street Wild West-style by the few police officers still standing, but it was disorganized and hectic, with people running into the path of the shots unknowingly, then being forced backwards and knocking into others who had decided to follow that way too. In a crisis, people are panicky cattle.

“C’mon,” Shana said, getting to her feet. Snake shook his head angrily, squeezing her hand.

“Don’t you dare try to stop me,” she said fiercely, sweeping her hair back and drawing her weapon from its place under her waistband. “This is my fight too.”

Snake wanted to argue. He wanted to scream at her, knock her over the head, lock her in a room until it was all over, but he was slowly and very surely realizing that, from that moment on, her place would be at his side, and his at hers, until one or both of them would fall. There wouldn’t be a day that they weren’t partners ever again. He loved and feared this realization, making him ache all over.

The next second, he nodded. He took one more precious moment to look at her, seeing her face where it was smudged and bruised, at the sweat at her hairline and upper lip, the tiny smear of blood on one cheekbone, the glint in her green eyes. Okay. Game on.

He took off down the street, jumping and gliding with almost-supernatural agility. He ricocheted off the walls of the buildings on the street, gaining momentum, and when he had drawn level with the standoff that was going on between the men and the police, he dove in with his katana flashing.

Most of the fight was a blur. He was trying very hard to keep his speed up, just for the sake of not being seen by the officers who were taking cover behind cars. The Cobra agents were all in civilian clothes, suits and ties and heavy shoes, and he tried picking them off quickly before the police could catch up and starting aiming their deadly shots at him. The armor and spandex might marginally protect him from a distant blaster shot, but the suit would be no match for police-issue weapons.

Behind him, Shana was shouting and directing traffic. She’d taken off her hoodie, revealing the bulletproof vest underneath. She looked official, holding her gun in her right hand and giving bellowed orders to the people running scared, so she was being listened to, all the better for the civilians in the street. She was getting closer to the action, though, drawing down the two blocks towards where Snake and the officers were fighting for their lives. He vowed to end this quickly.

He was not bothering with taking it easy on the men. His katana were dripping red bloody mess by the time he stopped to take a quick account of the scene, the bodies lying at his feet in heaps. The police around him were shouting, exchanging gunfire with two last men who had holed up together behind a thick-plated moving van, shooting through busted-out windows and over the hood. Snake Eyes took a running start and leapt to the roof of the van, slithering over it easily. The men beneath him were shooting both guns and blasters, which didn’t seem to need magazines and so were unlimited, as far as he could tell. He had to stop this. Officers had far outnumbered the men – he’d killed four in total – and yet there were far more injured being dragged by their comrades and worked over as they screamed.

There was one last gunshot before a brief pause as the men dropped the old magazines and went to slide new ones in; this was what he’d been waiting for. Snake Eyes dropped down between them and knocked down the first with a straight kick to his chest, then turned to the other man, wielding one katana. The Cobra operative delivered one solid blow straight to Snake’s wrist, not even bothering with the gun in his hands, and batted the sword away. Snake was distracted by the flash of pain in his hand and was only able to deflect the next punch with a stumbling step backwards, off-balance and on the run.

When in battle, Snake found that he was very, very bad at distinguishing his enemies from one another. In the heat of the moment, they all appeared to him in a rush of nerve bundles and flailing limbs. Very rarely was he even able to make out their facial features or an individual characteristic that he could name later. This whole night, he’d thought of the agents after them as one single organism, all smaller creatures who all looked the same and came from one being, The Enemy. Now, however, up close and personal with the very last of The Enemy Who Had Come to Kill Shana, Snake found himself almost fascinated with the man, observing the fluidity of his moves and the determination in his face. The man had three-day scruff, probably deliberate, and feminine blue eyes that he definitely played up with the ladies. He was panting with the exertion of the fight, but he was good, matching Snake move for move in hand-to-hand.

Suddenly Snake Eyes caught a fist to the throat and the games ended. He fell, rolled, and recovered clumsily, receiving a kick to his injured ribs for his trouble. The blow knocked the wind from him. Stunned, he was unable to regain his footing, so he had to roll and block with his forearms in front of his face, protecting the most vulnerable parts.

The Cobra agent drew his gun and cocked it, pointing it squarely into Snake Eyes’ mask. “Sorry,” the man murmured, and his trigger finger squeezed.

A gunshot exploded behind Snake’s head. The man crumbled, striking his skull audibly against the concrete sidewalk. Snake turned and saw Shana standing in firing stance, most of her body hidden behind the back corner of the moving van. She lowered her gun and came around fully.

“Are you hurt?” she asked, holding out a hand to him. He took it and stood gingerly, shaking his head. His ribs would keep him awake at night for a few weeks, but there wasn’t any severe damage.

“Stop! Put your hands up now! Drop the gun! Do it!”

The shouts coming from the police officers erupted suddenly, making them both flinch. Shana pressed a flat palm into Snake’s chest.

“Go. Hide. They’ll question you if you’re arrested. Go now. I’ll tell them it was me.”

Snake Eyes was touched by this gesture and did not argue. He let himself melt into the shadows of the buildings behind, seeing the officers approaching Shana with their guns pointed, hearing Shana shout, “Hold your fire! US Army!”

 

**Epilogue**

The bloody and tragic incident in the streets of residential DC was written as a mass robbery by a drug ring. Every man who was found killed - the two on the roof, one in Shana’s apartment, and five scattered among the street - had a history of minor assault and drug charges. It was very apparent to Shana and Snake that Cobra had burned their operatives, making sure there was no way the huge company could be tied to the siege. Though they had no solid evidence, both were sure that Cobra had sent men to kill her, and Shana promised Snake Eyes to tread lightly and be more careful with her research and investigations.

Shana was cleared of any wrongdoing in the months following, after she gave clear and concise testimony about her movements before, during, and after the assault. She told them of how she’d been woken in the middle of the night by armed men looking to do a home invasion, how she’d killed a few, and then was pursued. She told them how she had doubled back to find more apartments being broken into (which was true, they’d found out- the men had stormed the rest of the building in case she was hiding in another apartment) and had shot and killed more of them. The police took credit for most of the deaths on the street, though the mysterious slashing contusions on the bodies of the men were never fully explained.

Shana met with the mayor and was given a commendation from the Army. She was promoted to First Lieutenant and was given her own office within Army Intelligence. Sometimes she even visited the White House regarding homeland security.

Snake Eyes stopped tailing her, though it took a few weeks to break the habit. They settled into a sort of routine wherein he would check in on her a few days every month or two. He would tap on her kitchen window and she would let him in and they would sit at her kitchen table while she talked through recent events, getting his opinion on Cobra’s movements.

He started training her. Shana was good at martial arts, had a natural affinity for them, and he privately considered her the best student he’d ever had. He looked forward to their monthly meetings, and they started to evolve and grow longer and longer each visit. She even bought a new couch with a pull-out bed, though when he expressed disapproval, she innocently turned away, spouting something about broken springs and cat-scratched fabric on the old one.

She got around to telling him about her father, and he spent an uncomfortable few minutes trying to hide his squirming as she fought tears that hung but never fell. He told her an abbreviated history of his own, shamed by the dishonesty but more shamed by the truth.

And so they carried on as pseudo partners and allies for a few years. Sometimes, more and more as time went on, Shana would call Snake on a cell phone he carried with only her number in it, asking him to be somewhere at a specific time, and they would snoop and spy and try to gather information using all the skills he had and all the smarts she had. She would demonstrate some acrobatics or some stealth, and he would glow with pride. Shana was the one person he trusted and cared for most in the world besides Kim, but only Shana understood the strange allure and terror of the battlefield.

It went on like this, the strange partnership of Shana O’Hara and Snake Eyes, until the morning she called him and asked him to “be around” a Cobra Pharmaceuticals plant in Springfield. She had clearance for a soft raid and was going to be escorted by several members of the military, and would he be so kind as to meet her there?


End file.
